Tome Of Eldritch Lore - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Tomes Of Eldritch Lore

I preferred the movie.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore...

—Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

The Artifact Of Doom version of the Book Of Shadows. An old leatherbound book, with engravings depicting unpleasant creatures, prophecies of certain doom, and spells that do everything from turning toenails green to stopping (or causing) The End Of The World As We Know It. And don't ask where they got the leather unless you really want to know. (And you don't.)

Villains collect these books for their step-by-step guides to bringing about The End of the World As We Know It. When read by the hapless, they tend to summon The Legions Of Hell. When the books are read by the comic relief, Hilarity Ensues.

In Cosmic Horror Stories, they typically drive their readers into gibbering insanity, the title alone can make them hear voices.

Normally these books are centuries old, but one common subversion is for them to be modern paperbacks with almost-familiar names — e.g., The Idiot's Guide to Demonology, A Child's Garden Of Gibbering Horrors, The Home Handyman's Guide To Building Gates To Hell, Chicken Soup For The Soulless.

See Magic Hat and Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Compare Brown Note. Not to be confused with the Book Of Shadows or Spell Book, which are more of a neutral nature.

Examples:

Anime

Madlax — The Firstari, the Secondari and the Thirstari are capable of driving cities of men into their darkest emotions, creating doppelgangers, and bringing down airplanes.
Common item in the Read Or Die TV series done different ways. One, in which a god-like man named "The Gentleman" had his essence written into a number of such books. In the OVA series, there's a partial subversion: handwritten notes in the margins of an otherwise-harmless book held the secret to driving the entire human race to suicide. The manga used it straight; The Dark Abyss, a book bound in human flesh, that the publisher required 5 different people to print, a page at a time. Reading it or listening to someone read it instantly resulted in insanity.
Yu Yu Hakusho has a videotape, the Chapter Black, which serves essentially the same purpose. It's a recording of every evil deed ever done by humans, which human-hating Big Bad Sensui makes a point of showing to his followers to drive them insane with disgust at people.
- Notably, its part of a two-tape set. The other tape records every good deed ever done by humans, and you're not supposed to watch one without the other. Guess what Sensui did.
Soul Eater has the Book of Eibon, written by a sorceror centuries ago. It contains the information Arachne used to create the original Demon Weapons, and to turn herself into a psuedo-Kishin. It is currently being used by Noah, who impersonated Eibon, to collect anything he sees as interesting. Such as Death the Kid.

Comic Books

In an episode of Badger dealing with Lovecraftian beasties, Mavis whipped out her "Pocket Necronomicon".
In the Marvel Universe, a Tome called the Darkhold contains a variety of spells, including the Montessi Formula, which unmakes vampirism (and vampires).
- Worth mentioning, that using any spell from this tome equals sealing your soul to evil god Chthon, and most of them works in really twisted and sick ways.
Kurt Busiek's The Wizard's Tale revolves around a Tome Of Eldritch Lore which the inept and not particularly evil wizard must locate and cast spells from. Fortunately, he learns that the good guys hid it rather than destroyed it because it contains a spell to banish evil. He casts it instead.
The Sinestro Corps has the Book of Parallax, which contains everything every Sinestro Corpsman has ever done or will do in the name of causing fear.
- Later on we see the Book of the Black, penned in the tainted black tears of the undead Guardian Scar.
Knights Of The Dinner Table lampshades this while the knights are playing Scream of Kachoolu (the webcomic strips, bound in Tales from the Vault 5): Brian warns everyone to burn all books they find. This is further compounded by the fact that the last campaign ended messily with Bob's character reading a traveler's guide to Boise.

Film

The Evil Dead featured a book called Demontis Ex Morto, which, when read, resurrected a bunch of evil Kandarian spirits. By the time of Army Of Darkness, it was just called the Necronomicon.
The Mummy had one of these, as well as its good cousin.
The plot of the movie The Ninth Gate (based on The Club Dumas, above) revolves around a book called The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows. In the movie it was an adaptation of an earlier work supposedly written by the Devil himself and contained clues on how to summon him in person.
In Merlins Shop Of Mystical Wonders, Merlin, of all people, gives one of these to a snobby critic, of all people, to try to persuade him that magic is real. As a result, the critic summons a demon, sets fire to a cat, almost crushes himself and eventually manages to provide his wife with the baby she desires by, in a bizarre kind of "reverse incest", turns himself from her husband into her son. Naturally, Merlin thinks this is a jolly delightful jape.
In The Mouth Of Madness features the popular horror novelist Sutter Cane, who's last book is So Bad Its Horrible, if inexplicably well received by the public. Still managed to have a movie made, which was almost as well received as the book and made quite an impact on audiences around the world.

Literature

H.P Lovecraft's Necronomicon is the archetype of this trope. In addition to its cameos and parodies in all sorts of movies, books and TV shows, almost all modern instances of the trope owe something to it. The name is so ingrained in Western culture that many people think the book is real. To a degree this is helped by several companies printing versions of the ''Necronomicon'' (The "My first Necronomicon, a guide to the Cthulhu mythos for children is done in soft felt.)
- Also note that the myth that there is a "real" Necronomicon was helped by numerous pranks carried out back when there were library card catalogs, rather than electronic databases. Specifically, some smartass would create a fake card for the Necronomicon which was always checked out to one "A. Alhazred" (Abdul Alhazred being the fictional author of the book).
- It's also appeared in various rare book catalogs.
- Also during the 1980s several instructional guides on how to tell if your kid is involved in Satanism suggested asking if they had ever read the Necronomicon.
- The Necronomicon is not the only book of dark lore that appears in Lovecraft's works. Some of the others include Vermis Mysteriis, The Book of Eibon, Cultes des Goules and Die Unsprechliche Kulten (which Lovecraft thought was German for "Unspeakable cults", but actually means "Unpronounceable cults". Given the names of the Great Old Ones, it's probably more appropriate that way.)
  - Die Unaussprechlichen Kulte can be both, either Unspekable cults or Unpronounceable cults. In German, the "unspeakable" - variant would be the more obvious and thus common interpretation.
- Parodied by the Necrotelecomnicon (the Phonebook of the Dead), in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books. Supposedly, reading it would drive a man insane, which suits the purposes of the Librarian just fine (he's an orangutan, and thus not a "man").
  - The books (Equal Rites in particular) even recount an unfortunate case of a mage who tried to read the Necrotelecomnicon, and as a result he was never seen again, and the book became several pages thicker... (On Discworld, Necrotelecomnicon reads you!)
- Said Necronomicon is mentioned briefly in ''Wayfarer''. It is said that memorizing verses from it and intense training allows an occult student to pierce the veil which angels and demons hide from humanity.
- The Necrotelicomnicon also appears in the Library of Dream in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, under its alternate title, the Liber Paginarum Fulvarum (which is Dog Latin for "The Book of the Yellow Pages").
  - I could be wrong, but I think that was Good Omens. Sandman took its magic more seriously.
  - It's both, actually. It's also referred to in Equal Rites as a Shout Out.
- Several books called the The Necronomicon have been published, including:
  - A collection of short stories about the fictional Necronomicon by HP Lovecraft and other writers.
  - A collection of artworks by HR Giger.
  - At least two books purporting to be the "real" Necronomicon, which contains a hodgepodge of Sumerian mythology, Hermetic lore, Kabbalah and other mystical writings. In no way do these stories relate to Lovecraft's works, however.
  - There's also one now that details the 'wanderings of Alhazred', and so would be closer to Lovecraft's original idea. It's written by Donald Tyson.
- At least one collection of Lovecraft's writings has been called Necronomicon.
- The Necronomicon is mentioned in the Global Level section of Unknown Armies as a possible source of overwhelming magical power. This is subverted by the fact that those who get the most out of it are Bibliomancers, who gain power by acquiring rare books.
  - Not to mention that they add in a little "(If such a thing even exists)" so it's very likely the one in Unknown Armies is just a myth as well.
- Add to what's on the inside that drives you mad, it's a book that is normally portrayed to be bound in human skin (face skin at that), with the occasional habit of NecroNomNomNomiconing people's flesh like it's text eats your sanity away.
  - This is a pretty Flanderized view of the book in question, mainly lifted from its Evil Dead incarnation. In Lovecraft's short stories it's just an ordinary old book without anything immediately disturbing or harmful about it. Reading it can make sensitive people develop nervous conditions, but most people just find it unpleasant and disturbing, and by no means go insane, at least before they start to encounter phenomena described on the pages in real life. A malign sorcerer can find hints on how to perform rituals which in right circumstances can lead anything from summoning creatures from Beyond to causing the Apocalypse, however.
Speaking of Discworld, let's not forget the Octavo - the book containing the eight most powerful spells, left behind on the Disc by its creator. (When Rincewind "accidentally" read the book, one of the spells got stuck in his head; this left him unable to learn any other spells [even after he got rid of it] - and was responsible for much of the plot of the first two books.)
- And then there's the footnote about how, like Oxford's Bodleian Library, Unseen University's Library has the books chained to the shelves. The difference is that in the Bodleian that's to stop the students damaging the books, while at UU it's...the other way around.
- UU also has several volumes of sex magic, one of which must be kept in a room full of ice. Humans can't read them without being driven a very specific type of mad, but the librarian can, because he's an Orangutan, and simply gets unusual feelings about fruit for a while.
Robert W. Chambers' King in Yellow stories feature the eponymous play which simultaneously enlightens and drives mad anyone who reads it all. (Presumably a production would be impossible to stage.) Only a few brief excerpts, not enough to clearly indicate the plot or subject matter, are ever given. Likewise, the Yellow Sign is never actually described. Chambers' stories predated Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos stories and Lovecraft cited them as an inspiration.
- Not necessarily impossible to perform; just because you are mad doesn't mean you can't do things.
  - If the Pallid Mask doesn't find you first, sure. The paranoia and existential dread alone would probably get to you, though.
- A similar work, the Massa di Requiem par Shuggay, is an opera that is impossible to perform. Why? If the performance isn't interrupted, Azathoth is summoned midway through the second act.
The Dictionary of the Khazars, as described in the lexicon novel of the same name, was printed in a poisonous ink. Remarkably, this ink causes convulsions, pain, and eventual death not from licking or eating the pages, but from reading them, and death would always strike at a particular point on the ninth page.
One might argue that the Book of the Dead in the Undead and ______ books by Mary Janice Davidson is a Tome Of Eldritch Lore, as it can only be read for a page or two at a time before it starts to mess with your head. Though given that it gives instructions and prophecies for Queen Betsy's entire reign (whether or not it has more unpleasant spells and such isn't mentioned), it is also a Book Of Shadows as well.
The vampire novel, The Historian has one of these which has the effect of attracting Vlad Dracula and his minions to those who find a copy. This is made creeper by the fact that the novel actually looks like the Tome Of Eldritch Lore described within.
The book The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte reproduces the nine illustrations that provide the clues to invoke the devil in the tome of eldritch lore (De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis — everything occult sounds better in Latin), repeated each time the protagonist finds one of the three surviving copies of the Novem Portis, as each one has a subtly different set of illustrations. There is a Twist Ending that hinges on these differences. It is little surprising that these illustrations are supposedly reprinted from the fabled Delomelanicon, or Invocation of Darkness.
The Malus Codicium, from the Warhammer 40000: Eisenhorn series of novels, is such a book, as it contains many scriptures on daemon summoning, binding etc. The protagonist (an Inquisitor perfectly used to dealing with such artifacts) finds this book particularly creepy, as unlike lesser books encountered, it gives off no sinister aura. It's just like any other book...that helps you bind daemons.
- The Necroteuch from the first book is a lesser example, it is the entire focus of the book but what exactly it does is never stated, and it emits an aura of incredible evil so it is a bit of a no-brainer what to do with it. ( After you've tricked a Chaos Space Marine into picking it up. And taken advantage of its effects to kill the Marine.)
Played for comedy in Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix with "the literature of the [untranslatable]".
In the Whateley Universe, one of the main characters, Sara Waite, is a young Eldritch Abomination. She owns shelves full of these, and considers them ideal casual reading material. As long as she can remind them not to eat her friends.
- The Whateley library also has a restricted section of these. And a REALLY restricted section of the worse ones. Note, however, that Sara's are the ones that the library doesn't dare touch.
- And then there's horror novelist Michael Waite's best-seller Incongruity, which is really The First Book Of Kellith. The relationship between Michael Waite and Sara Waite is... complicated.
F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series has the Compendium of Srem, which translates itself into your native language for your cans-of-evil-unsealing convenience.
The Old Kingdom Trilogy features The Book of the Dead, a green leather-bound book that's different each time it's read and shows a certain disconcerting independence of movement. It can only be opened by a necromancer, and closed by an uncorrupted Charter mage - that is, the Abhorsen and their successor. Normal people find it exudes an aura of deathly chill and utter terror. It's not actively malevolent, though, since it's kind enough to ensure the reader doesn't remember the more horrifying sections until they really really need to.
- In the second book of the trilogy, Lirael takes on a job working in the Great Library of the Clayr, which is a bit more like a museum. The books (and "exhibits") range from the prosaic to works of great magic, which are kept under lock and key.
In the young adult horror anthology Still More Scary Stories For Sleepovers, the short story "Night of the Ki-Khwan" has an example. The protagonist's scholar mother brings home a collection of texts that describe Native American rituals. One of these rituals provides instructions on summoning the titular Ki-Khwan, who are essentially Native American werewolves. The protagonist and his friends, being young and foolish boys, decide to give some of the rituals a shot late at night in the woods for a thrill. To their horror, they succeed in summoning the man-beasts. Just when it seems like they can keep their campfire going long enough to keep the creatures at bay, a raindance they performed earlier kicks in, putting the fire out.
In the guide book How To Be A Villain, its guide to weapons contains books of evil, which more or less fit this trope perfectly.
John Barnes's One For The Morning Glory features Highly Unpleasant Things It Is Sometimes Necessary To Know and worse, Things That Are Not Good To Know At All.
Du Svardenvyrd (The Weird of the Swords) in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy is a perfectly straight example of this trope. Written by a mad prophet, it causes mortals who read it to Go Mad From The Revelation, and it is eventually revealed that the book is basically an instruction manual for summoning the undead Storm King back into the world. Notable in that the book doesn't have any inherent mystical power, but the secrets it reveals are too much for a sane mind to accept.
The Book Bound in Pale Leather in P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles Of The Kencyrath books works a lot like this, even though it was given to the Kencyr people by their God. It's not exactly nice, and neither is the book; reading too much of it can drive you mad or kill you, and the Master Runes inside are highly dangerous to use. Oh, and that leather? Human skin, and the Book appears to be alive; dropping it gives it bruises.
The Shannara Series by Terry Brooks has the Ildatch, which contains all the knowledge of magic. Those who read it are corrupted until they become Always Chaotic Evil beings of magic. This book was the cause of many, if not all, of the ills that plague the world. Even after it was destroyed, the hunt for it caused Allanon to die, opening the door for the next evils in the following four books. In the third book, the Wishsong of Shannara Brin Ohmsford was persuaded (by the Ildatch itself) to peruse its contents. She almost became Cthulhu when her brother Jair let her see what was happening, and she promptly destroyed the Ildatch.
In Ben Counter's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Galaxy In Flames, Loken runs across a book that changes languages (and alphabets) under his gaze, gives him horrific visions, and convinces him that the Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions view of the Empire is wrong.
Caster's book in Fate Zero is a tome that has an essentially limitless magical supply and summons demons/eldritch abominations for him. They're actually really weak but they can be regenerated faster than they can be killed if there are a decent amount of them fighting. And he was summoned by a book bound in human skin involving a ritual involving blood magic. Technically, you're supposed to use chickens so its not that bad, but it was also found by a serial killer who finds killing an art.
In The Cassini Division (A Fall Revolution book by Ken Macleod) two characters peruse a market stall selling old books. One tome, Home Workshop Nanotech by a "Dr. Frank N Stein" published some 250 years before the events of the book explained in straightforward terms how to make replicating nanotech using a simple computer, some household chemicals and a tunnelling electron microscope. Sci-fi to be sure; but a mysterious ancient book containing world-shattering knowledge of things man was not meant to meddle with? Sounds pretty eldritch to me.

Live Action TV

On Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Giles had whole bookcases filled with these. "Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the books."
- He used to keep them in the library of the high school. This was lampshaded once, with the principal doing a search of the library and questioning whether it was appropriate to have in a high school library filled with tomes instructing on the uses of dark magic - despite being asked during a period of demonic-inspired moral panic against magic, this was actually quite a reasonable question, considering.
  - Notice that Snyder confiscated the books, but in succeeding episodes Giles has them again. Apparently, Snyder returned these books to Giles afterwards, no matter how out of character that might seem.
  - Or maybe some of Giles' friends and associates...persuaded...Snyder to give them back. Or maybe he made him forget the whole thing, and took them back himself. This IS the guy who introduced the freaky-cool ninja dude to his wife, in the fake-evil-Angel-to-fool-Faith episode.
- Giles explained in an early episode that he did it because the students never come into the library. It's the perfect place for a Watcher to put a collection of books so no-one will ever read them.
The Book of Changes from Ghost Whisperer.

Real Life

Ancient Egypt had the Book Of Going Forth By Day - popularly known as the Book Of The Dead - of which many of the above are explicit references or parodies, making this Older Than Feudalism.
- More of a Book Of Shadows really, as it contained the spells needed to survive the journey to the soul's judgement after death.
The Thousand And One Nights aka Arabian Nights is said to drive to madness anyone who reads the entire work.
- It's online at Project Gutenberg for anyone who's curious enough to try it. [1] ( This troper's read it and seems fairly sane so far...)
  - Then explain your presence on TV Tropes.
  - Maybe reading it in English doesn't have the same effect, although this troper isn't taking her chances with the Burton translation...
  - If one reads it in the original Arabic, maybe it reads something like: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".
The Malleus Maleficarium definitely qualifies. It's a book written by fifteenth-century witch-hunters to record the depraved practices allegedly practiced by the diabolical witches, and the equally cruel tortures that were visited on those who were suspected of being witches.
- Its worth noting that the reigning Pope denounced Malleus Maleficarium as heretical. Make of that what you will.
  - But not before writing a recommendation for it. Apparently he just changed his mind afterwards..
This book, made from the skin of one of Scotland's most infamous serial killers, one day will manifest dark powers. Mark my words.
- But...but it's a checkbook!
  - All the better to corrupt humanity! Seriously, would you suspect a checkbook to drive you insane? ...Red Ink aside naturally.
The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses is a usually single-volume Spell Book which purports to be Older Than Dirt. It was considered by Kurt E. Koch, a German Lutheran minister, to be an Artifact Of Doom because one page in the volume maintains (he claimed) that whoever owns the volume belongs to Satan. In other words, if it's on your bookshelf, Satan can do with you whatever he wishes. He maintained, therefore, all copies must be destroyed.
Two particularly famous examples, the Voynich Manuscript and the Codex Seraphinianus, are often confused with each other because they're superficially very similar: Both are encyclopedias written in an unknown language, peppered with bizarre illustrations of otherworldly biology. The Codex is a "work of art" made in the 70s, but the Voynich Manuscript is centuries old, possibly dating from medieval Europe, when accurate botanical information was hard to come by. (The bizarre flora and fauna depicted are often mishmashes of features from real plants.) Anyway, it's a lot more mundane than the Codex, which is truly mind-blowing to behold.
Encyclopedia Dramatica.
- There's even powerful spells!
TVtropes. We're all trapped! TRAPPED!

Tabletop Games

Dungeons And Dragons has had countless numbers of these over the years and editions. If one is of a magical turn of thought, caution should be taken when putting pen to paper. The most notable and persistent of these tomes is the Book of Vile Darkness, which is so evil that reading it can damage a good person's mind. (The publishers of the game actually produced a sourcebook on evil by this name later on.) The original edition of D&D actually had separate versions of this text for priests and wizards, with the Book of Vile Darkness being the priestly version and the Libram of Ineffable Damnation the wizardly version. A few subversions also exist: the Book of Exalted Deeds, a book of pure goodness (and the Libram of Silver Magic, its wizardly cousin), and the Libram of Gainful Conjuration, which can only be read if you don't side with either good or evil.
- All of which are mere cheap knockoffs of the REAL badass book of AD&D, The Codex of the Infinite Planes. How bad is it? Just opening it can kill you.
  - That's not that bad. You can achieve much the same effect with a normal book and some black lotus extract.
- The Tome of the Stilled Tongue, sacred to Vecna, deserves its own mention. This is the kind of book which a) can only be safely used by those worshipping an evil lich-god of scheming and dark magic and b) comes with a free human tongue nailed to the front as an example of why you shouldn't blab the secrets of the Maimed God.
- A few non-magical tomes of lore have achieved prominence in D&D, including the Black Scrolls of Ahm and the notorious Demonomicon of Iggwilv.
- Let's not forget that the very D&D rulebook is a tome of eldritch lore and it'll teach you how to worship Satan.
  - Only if you fancy an eternity of fire and brimstone, you blasphemous demoniac devil-spawn freaks.
Exalted has numerous examples, but the most infamous might be The Broken Winged Crane. How bad is it? It isn't even written yet; all the copies that exist are reverse engineered from the perfect version that comes into existence the day the world ends. And seeing as the only canon character to have read the book is implied to have been abducted and mind raped by archdemons, there's a very good chance the book causes it.
As befits its tone, Deadlands has a few of these tucked away in its pages and pages of Splatbooks. The most "Eldritch Lore-y", though, would be the Whateley Family Bible, which—in addition to having the Family Tr...Shrub (don't ask) in the front pages—contains margin notes on how to perform all manner of dark arts. The irony of profaning a Holy Bible is not lost on the misanthropic family. Player Character Whateleys, while assumed to be a moral cut above their NPC brethren (and cousins and uncles, some of which are the same people), can get a "pocket sized" version, which contains less forbidden lore and can cause panic in anyone attempting to translate it...whether they succeed or not!
Mage: the Awakening has numerous books called grimoires, where a mage enscribes all their knowledge of a spell (literally; it leaves their mind forever) so that others can learn it more easily. Needless to say, some grimoires are less than wholesome, including: the book of the life of an Atlantean prophet that turns those who study it enough into a psychic clone of said prophet; a bestiary on Abyssal beings that leads the mage who reads it enough to believe that he's uncovered an important secret and that all his friends have turned on him; and the book that contains both normal spells and spells that draw upon the Abyss but doesn't tell you which are which.
- The worst of these are The Final Spell Of Ali Ben-Mechem and The Invsible Codex. The former is a seemingly-sentient spell that teaches you how to summon reversed forms of Goetia symbolizing reversed Virtues into your enemies' minds, which are actually Abyssal entities who will escape. The latter is an Abyssal creature in the form of a Book Of Shadows, which actually takes that form to lure power-hungry mages so it can eat their souls.
While most of them don't literally involve books (and conversely not all book-related cards in the game suffer from this, either), Magic: the Gathering features its share of cards that play on the 'forbidden knowledge' theme by providing access to additional cards for a modest sacrifice in life points or cards already in hand or in play.
Warhammer 40000 brings us first the Book Of Lorgar, which helped start the Horus Heresy, then in true 40k fashion, goes overboard with the Black Library: an entire extradimensional stronghold full of forbidden lore, guarded by space elf ninja clowns.
- Who worship a god that managed to trick other gods into eating each other. Named the Laughing God of course.
Pyramid had an article detailing Clay Bricks of Eldritch Lore which fit pretty much every aspect of this trope (unreadable, evil, drive you crazy) except that they're not actually books.

Video Games

The Mysterium Xarxes in The Elder Scrolls.
- The Elder Scrolls themselves are not exactly powerless either. Reading them does not drive you mad, but blinds you instead, for longer and longer periods, unless protected by the Cowl of Nocturnal. However, they are incredibly powerful, and even Nocturnal's Curse cannot alter them, such that the scrolls break the curse instead.
Eternal Darkness centers around one such tome, called The Tome of Eternal Darkness. Crafted from human skin and bones, it does pretty much all the things mentioned above - summons the hordes of hell, drives the reader slowly insane, allows the use of Functional Magic by employing Instant Runes - all of which you'll need to figure out how to prevent The End Of The World As We Know It. And maybe, just maybe, get away with your sanity intact...
A couple of optional quests in Fable 2 have the Normanomicon, the book of the extremely dead. Said quest is a touch underwhelming.
The Gran Grimoire in Final Fantasy's Ivalice Alliance miniseries. In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, it's a magickal tome that transforms the sleepy town of St. Ivalice into the actual Ivalice. In Vagrant Story, it's not a book per se —every stone in the city of Leá Monde is inscribed with ancient Kildean runes, turning the city into the ultimate codex of magick.
Golden Sun has the "Tomegathericon" an item which allows the party member who equips it to take the "Dark Mage" classes, and grants powers such as attacking with hellfire, summoning demons and raising zombies. Curiously, the tome is given to the party by a benevolent animistic deity, who asks that they safeguard it until the witch doctor of the tribe that worships the deity has matured enough to be worthy of receiving it (witch doctor also being a benevolent role).
- Note that it was actually called Necronomicon in Japanese.
The various magical tomes from Grim Grimoire. With every new Groundhog Day Loop cycle Lillet goes through, they become even more powerful, until she's capable of summoning dragons, golems, and arch-demons.
Shadow Hearts has the Emigre Manuscript, a book so evil that it even has skull-shaped pages. Its main selling point is that it contains instructions on how to bring someone Back From The Dead, something attempted in all four games of the series. Unfortunately, most attempts end up as grotesque Eldritch Abominations.
Super Paper Mario has the Dark Prognosticus, which is featured in the header picture. The game's intro states that "The book held frightful secrets not meant for people's eyes." Later in the game, it's discovered that Lord Blumiere was reborn as Nietzsche Wannabe Count Bleck upon first opening the book.
- There's a reason nobody was supposed to look at it: opening the book sets in motion The End Of The Multiverse As We Know It, and makes you continue flipping pages until all worlds end.
Alice Margatroid of the Touhou series always carries a locked grimoire with her, and has only opened it once (as the boss of the Extra Stage in Mystic Square).
- Marisa Kirisame wrote one herself, The Grimoire of Marisa. The actual publication is an odd piece of merch: it's not really detailed enough to be a Strategy Guide, and too narrow in focus to be a Universe Compendium (a function already performed by Perfect Memento in Strict Sense.) Perhaps ZUN wants to emphasize that Touhou is supposed to be about its gameplay?
Books of dark magic and eldritch lore appear in Warcraft games. Notable ones include the Book of Medivh, which was used to summon the demon lord Archimonde, the Compendium of Shadows, and Lexicanum Demonica, which is said to contain the name of every demon in existance.
The Book of Condemnation in Suikoden V and Alhazred, the recruitable character who is looking for it.
In Shadow of the Comet, the player gets to read a few pages of the Necronomicon, although he's been warned that it would drive him crazy. (he can't move forwards in the plot without doing so) Apparently, it's safe to read it as long as you don't take it away from the room it was stored in.
"Fragments of the Book of Abdul" and "De Vermis Mysteriis" in the original Alone In The Dark. The first one hurts Carnby, the latter is instant death.
Kingdom Of Loathing has the Cookbook of the Damned, for Pastamancers to conjure infernal pastas directly from Hey Deze. The Necrotelicomnicon is also there (also known in Latin as the Liber Paginum Fulvarum.)
"Legend has it that the mad Arab Al Aksandir Garambel wrote it after he was driven insane by his very first summoning, a terrifying entity known only as Wa'tz'ynn."
In the Call Of Cthulhu RPG, all the books are present, from The Book of Eibon to The Necronomicon. Books will give you knowledge of the occult, but also cause permanent Sanity loss.

Web Comics

The Necronomicon was parodied in the webcomics Penny Arcade and Megatokyo with the Necrowombicon, with Penny's wombat logo on its cover.
The webcomic A Miracle Of Science has Crank Theories Of Robotics, one of a number of books which can infect susceptible persons with Science Related Memetic Disorder, essentially an idea-disease that turns you into a Mad Scientist.
The plot of the webcomic Zebra Girl starts with one of these.
Parodied in this◊ Perry Bible Fellowship strip.
The Book of E-Ville in Sluggy Freelance, which is hinted to have power and backstory far more significant than its cutesy title suggests.
The Call Of Whatever took a humorous approach to the Necronomicon.

Western Animation

The Simpsons parodied it. In the first Tree House of Horror, one segment features an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's the Raven. When the line about reading the quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore comes around, we find Home reading a book titled "Forgotten Lore, Volume III"
- In another Simpsons, Lisa is cleaning out the garage and finds a thick leather bound book. She begins to read the Latin and behind her, a demon begins to form. However the horror is foiled when she tosses the book aside in favor of Mad Libs.
- And again in Halloween special III where Bart and Lisa find a book in the library’s “Occult section". Bart attempts to bring back their dead cat Snowball but end up raising the dead.
- Also the members of Springfield's Republican Party read from the Necronomicon.
During the trial episode of season one of The Venture Brothers, Dr. Orpheus asks the bailiff to swear him in with his own book. A book that bears a suspicious resemblance to the Necronomicon. As the book snarls at the bailiff, Dr. Orpheus warns: "Careful, he's a nibbler!"
Titanium Chef from Sushi Pack, uses recipes from The Book of Chum Chop to perpetrate his villainy. This includes creating perfect (but emotionless) dopplegangers, opening a warp to a parallel universe, and cooking up a batch of shoeshine that makes anyone who uses it feel cold even though they're not.